I’m in the process of pairing down the weight of my main gigging kit. It’s a painstaking process of weighing each piece of hardware and then mixing or matching them and in some cases replacing them with the aim of making my overall kit as light as possible.

Along the way I decided to try to add a tom mount to my kick so that I could replace my main boom stand with a lighter straight stand. I’ve always needed a beefier stand there in order to support the weight of my top rack tom, you see. Since my Sleishman kick has a heavy supporting ring, there really isn’t any reason not to attach the toms directly to it. There are no concerns of putting stress on the shell or or dampening the resonance as the Sleishman system so elegantly eliminates those problems already. And since there are plugged mounting holes on the kick rail already, this seemed like a no-brainer.

The trouble however is that neither Sleishman nor Mothertone seems to offer such a mount, so I was forced to try to find an aftermarket rail that would fit those mounting holes (in my case, they are spaced about 74mm apart). It turns out the the DW 7771 Retro-style Mount is pretty much a perfect fit. If you’re looking for a similar solution, I highly recommend it.

Here are some pics of the mount as it attached to my 20″ kick (though it should fit any size).

I *love* my Sleishmans, but one persistent problem I’ve had are rattles from my floor tom. The depth of that drum requires fairly long tube lugs, which in turn have a significant amount of play at their longest extent. I do keep that drum tensioned fairly low (about low to middle I’d say) and it’s actually possible to grab the top rim like a steering wheel and turn it a couple degrees either way. Tightening the drum might keep it from being able to twist like that, but that’s a tuning compromise I’d rather not make.

When the rim is not twisted and the lugs are correctly positioned at 90° to the hoop, then all is well. However between bouncing around in the car during transport and being pulled out of the case by the rim it inevitably gets twisted a bit. When that happens one or more of the tension rods can be in contact with the side of its hole in the hoop. This metal-on-metal contact is what’s causing my rattle.(more…)

I’d been working on refurbishing my old snare drum recently. Here’s a shot of the finished product.

The shell is from a vintage Duplex Tonecraft (Rogers) snare, from the 60’s. I first acquired it in the late 80’s at a flea market for $10.

Back then it was in blue sparkle wrap. The original hardware was in sad shape, the chrome pitted and peeling and with rust setting in. In the early 90’s I stripped the original wrap and replaced it with piano black. I also replaced the original lugs with the old “Pearl style” ones and sharpened the bearing edges. I also added a layer of satin polyurethane to the interior to help the shell project more.

Now for its second refurbishment, I’ve restripped the shell and sealed it with clear polyurethane. I’ve also replaced ALL the hardware this time, with newer Pearl “bridge” lugs and a modern throw off from Drum Foundry. I’ve also added a larger vent and custom Purecussion snares. This drum just plain sings now! I could not be happier with it.

To add to its personal historical and sentimental value, the rims it uses are now from my very first student snare drum from some 28 years ago. My drum teacher, Mrs. Horst, engraved our names on them so we students could tell them all apart. I’m flooded with memories whenever I remove this drum from its case 🙂

I’ve posted some new demo tracks from a group I’ve recently joined calledMayFly & the BlueNotes. We’re starting to get some traction and may be playing live in-studio at a local radio station within the next month or two!

This Friday I’ll be playing my first gig with Voodoo Saints, at The Viking in Novato.

While going through and getting all my equipment ready, it dawned on me that this will be my first gig on acoustic drums in at least a decade! It’ll be interesting to see how well I can slip back into it. Not that playing gigs with acoustics is at all physically different than with electronics, but there definitely is a different mindset to it. Particularly since this is a small enough venue that I won’t be being mic’d at all and will have to rely on the sheer volume of my kit. Lucky me that I hung onto my ‘rock’ kit all this time — it’ll have no problem cutting through the amps 🙂

All in all, it should be an absolute blast! So if you’re looking for some fun this Friday in the North Bay, drop on by The Viking and say “hi” — we’d love to see ya! Shows starts at 9PM.